I say that the first dance was unnamed simply because it existed before we decided to name our dances after tube lines.  It was created almost immediately, and was the dance used for our first few crawls and danceouts.  It was our only dance until Jubilee was written in January 2013, so we probably just referred to it as "the dance"!  Personally I would consider it to be a "proper" dance, since it was danced out.

The first dance was created almost immediately (spring 2012). The AGM minutes for November 2012 say "we have decided that we want to write ourselves a second dance. We would like to make it more complicated than and as separate as we can from our current one. Everyone can input into the second dance with figures that they like. Until this second dance is written, we can practice variations on figures for the first dance, and figures that we like for the second dance." This second dance was what would later be named Jubilee, and was the dance we took to DERT in 2013.

I'm starting to go through the email archives now (this is quite fun!). Jubilee was first written in January 2013, and went to DERT two months later. There are a couple of videos of us learning it (one in practice, one on crawl - these are fairly embarrassing to watch!). The first mention of the tube line titles is in April 2013, when Jubilee is officially named as such. The impression I have at this point going by the emails is that we are working on teaching everyone Jubilee and the first dance has fallen by the wayside.

Later that summer, we start to learn a new dance, aimed at being easier than Jubilee ("the DERT dance"), and judging by the email listing the figures, I think this is the Circle dance, though it's not called by name. The minutes in November 2013 say the dances are "named after tube lines, have a good dance and a learner dance. Let's call dances by their tube names. Jubilee is not-finished-dert dance. People seem to not want a third dance before dert. Happy to work on current dances. Could do dance well, add tumble."  The learner dance here is the Circle dance.  We visited Thrales December 2013 to run a tumbling workshop.  There's another video of us dancing Jubilee in practice in January 2014 - with added tumble!

By the EGM in March 2014, the Circle dance has died.  The minutes say "We should definitely write a second dance!  It would be really good to get one with more complex moves that will be more dramatic to an audience.  We must be careful not to make it such hard work we tire ourselves out or lose any of our precision though!  Concern regarding the Jubilee dance being our “easy” dance, but we think that’ll probably be OK.  It’d be good to make the new dance more general facing to be able to take it out this summer.  Salvage bits of the original Circle dance?  Jumps would be good!  Descriptor:  “A flashy complex circle-ish dance that we would be able to take to DERT” (if we wanted)."

Piccadilly was created summer and autumn 2014.  There's a video of people walking through the first half of it in September 2014, having learnt it. It looks like Piccadilly had its first dance out sometime in autumn 2014, and it was danced out at Mabel Day 2014.  (This is during my break from Ravens, so I'm not sure on the details - can anyone remember?)  Westerhope was also first decided upon as the trad dance to learn autumn 2014.  Both Westerhope and Piccadilly had their first DERT performances in 2015.  But I'm getting tired and I want to go to bed, so I'm going to stop digging through the archives for detailed dates now.  More info on request.  :)

In terms of Thrales, I'm too tired to word my thoughts properly now - I'll send a follow up email in the morning.

Hope this all makes sense.

Rachel

On Wed, 30 May 2018, 19:16 Rachel Anne Smith, <smith.rachelanne@googlemail.com> wrote:

Ooh I'm learning! Circle dance - intriguing! This is all great stuff. But I probably won't focus on an unnamed dance - would the team consider Jubilee to be our first 'proper' dance?

And it's fair to say that help from Thrales was instrumental to getting TR off the ground? (sorry for the bird pun) I know the first crawl was joint with them. 

(oh and in the future when I'm getting the archive together - Im gonna need to document all you team knowledge Rachel!)

Thanks, 

R-a xx

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 6:54 PM, Rachel Sheridan <rachel.sheridan@cantab.net> wrote:

I don't know what happened to the feather boas. They're probably kicking around in someone's cupboard...

Thrales taught us figures, but we've written all our own dances (except for Westerhope, obviously!). Jubilee wasn't actually our first dance - before that there was an even simpler beginners dance that was never named. And between Jubilee and Piccadilly was the Circle dance, which only lasted a short while.

There was a reasonable amount of experience at the beginning - several people had come from university sides, or done workshops in the past. But we also had people who'd stewarded at DERT and never done any rapper before at all.

Rachel

On Wed, 30 May 2018, 16:00 Rachel Anne Smith, <smith.rachelanne@googlemail.com> wrote:

Thanks Rachel and Hannorah - these are great! Love the first DERT photo! Any memories/stories from that first DERT? It definitely helps to have accompanying dates and locations because I was thinking about doing a timeline of important dates, maybe. 

And that first crawl looked like a lot of fun! Why did we give up on feather boas?! 

Did Thrales help teach/make up Jubilee? Or was there enough expertise in the set at the beginning? 

R-a xx

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 11:31 AM, Rachel Sheridan <rachel.sheridan@cantab.net> wrote:

Here are the photos off Facebook of our first ever crawl. First crawl was joint with Thrales on 12th October 2012, in Clerkenwell. As Hannorah says, first solo crawl was that December. Photos attributed to Nic Chrisp, for those of you who remember her.  I love how in these photos you can see we hadn't made sashes yet and just had bits of net. Proper sashes by DERT 2013, though, as per Hannorah's photo.

I've also attached the poster we used to advertise before the team even began! This poster was up at DERT at C# in March 2012, along with matching flyers. We had a pub meeting to talk about plans on 2nd April, and our first dancing practice was a workshop from Thrales on 16th April. We didn't become Tower Ravens until May 2012.

Rachel

On Wed, 30 May 2018, 08:54 Hannorah Lee, <hannorah.lee@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

Here’s a couple from early days:

- Whitby 2013 (our first unofficial festival: a couple of pub dances & Aisha’s 19th Birthday!) 

- Our first official festival, Tenterden 2013

- Cover of Folk London 2014

- Our first DERT, Burton, 2013 

- First solo crawl in Islington, Dec 2012 

I’ve got more, but no point me duplicating ones someone else is gonna send. But let me know if you want them.

Hx 

On 29 May 2018, at 14:49, Rachel Anne Smith via TowerRavensTeam <towerravensteam@lists.postman.org.uk> wrote:

Thanks Rachel  - I'll take a look too. Why didn't I think of facebook? Duh!! x

On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 2:47 PM, Rachel Anne Smith <smith.rachelanne@googlemail.com> wrote:

No problem, Ffion - thanks! I just thought I'd get started early to make sure everyone who wants to contribute gets a chance. 

Can't wait to get a look at the first dance out! x

On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 1:55 PM, Ffion Mair <ffion_coch@hotmail.com> wrote:

There's definitely a photo from our first dance out. We're on the square in Clerkenwell and Simon Vaughan is wearing a blue feather boa. There are also photos of making skirts in that place under the arches. I probably have lots of useful photos on my hard drive but I'm away until Sunday. Is it ok to send you them then? X

On 29 May 2018 1:37 pm, Rachel Sheridan <rachel.sheridan@cantab.net> wrote:

There are early photos of the first crawl somewhere on Facebook, I remember finding them before. I'll have a look when I have a moment.

Rachel

On Tue, 29 May 2018, 13:31 Becky Such, <rebeccasuch@hotmail.com> wrote:

It's worth perusing facebook which has the first DERT we attended and when we got new swords (2013)

I've just tried searching through Thrales' photos but can't see any of us from the first crawl, but I'll ask Vaughan as he tommied for us and does love a photo.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/thrales/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10151772149246701 is an album where they taught us how to tumble if that is of any use?

Also, I'm investigating the biodegradable body glitter for Sidmouth *woop*

Becky xx

Thrales Rapper www.facebook.com Thrales Rapper, London, United Kingdom. 854 likes. Rapper short sword dancers from Southwark; bringing culture and enlightenment to the congestion charge zone and beyond! Twitter @Thrales/Instagram...

---

From: TowerRavensTeam <towerravensteam-bounces@lists.postman.org.uk> on behalf of Rachel Anne Smith via TowerRavensTeam <towerravensteam@lists.postman.org.uk>
Sent: 29 May 2018 11:33
To: Tower Ravens
Subject: [Tower Ravens] Scrapbook

 

Hi everyone, 

I've been tasked with creating a scrapbook for Sidmouth. (Will it have a quilted front cover, you ask? Probably!)

There are some photos in the google drive but not that many, and they only go as far back as 2014. If anyone has any favourite photos (and accompanying stories/anecdotes?!) that they want to be included please email them to me (max 5 so as not to get out of hand).

And founding/early members - Jo, Rachel, Ffion, Sue I'm looking at you - Do you have the very first photo? I think it would be lovely to include that if we could. (Or one from the first dance out)

Thanks for your input!

R-a xx

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